what will you say, if we can perform no good work till we are interested in Christ and accepted by God?

Ther. Say!-that this is razing foundations.

Asp. It is razing the wrong, the foundation falsely so called; which will certainly deceive as many as make it their trust. And is it not prudent, when we are building for eternity, carefully to examine the ground? Is it not friendly to divert a man from the treacherous sand, and lead him to the unshaken rock? For this cause I said it once, and for this cause I say it again, that we can perform no good work till we are interested in Christ, and accepted of God.

Ther. Produce your reasons, Aspasio; and strong reasons they must be which are forcible enough to sup. port such an opinion.

Asp. The case seems to speak for itself. How can a man that is evil do works that are good? Would you expect to gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?" But let us hear what our unerring teacher says; As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me? Nothing can be more express and full to our purpose; but that which follows is far more awful and alarming to our consciences: If a man abide not in me, he is çast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.'t From which it appears, that the human heart is never actuated by good tempers; that the human life can never be productive of good works, until a man is ingrafted into Christ, no more than a branch can bear valuable fruit, while it continues in a state of separation from the tree. It appears, also, that persons alienated from Christ, are, and all their performances too, like broken, withered, rotten boughs; fit for nothing but to be committed to the flames, and consumed from

+Ibid. xv. 6.

* John xv. 4. This discovers an error, which is often committed, in our attempts to instruct little children. What is more common than to tell them, If they will be good, God Almighty will love and bless them? Whereas, they should rather be informed, that they are sinners; but that God Almighty has given his Son to die for sinners and if they pray to him, lie will forgive their sins, will make them holy, make them happy, and bless them with all spiritual blessings in Christ."

the earth. Both they and their services, far from being meritorious, are, in the estimate of heaven, worthless and despicably mean.

Ther. What! Are all the noble deeds, performed by the advocates for morality, and lovers of virtue, worth. less in themselves, and despicable before the Supreme Being? Worthless and despicable (grating words!) only because they are not attended with the peculiarities of your faith? Can the want of this little circumstance change their nature, and turn their gold into dross?

Asp. My dear Theron, call not the circumstance little. It is sufficient, were your works more precious than gold, to debase them into tin, into lead, into dross. When the poor shepherd brought you, yesterday morn ing, a present of some wood strawberries; bringing them as an humble expression of his gratitude, they were kindly received. But, if he had offered them as a price for your house, or as the purchase of your estate; how should you have regarded them in such a connexion? No words can express the disdain you would have conceived. When Barnabas presented a sum of money to the apostles for the supply of their necessities, and the relief of indigent believers, it was welcome to them, and pleasing to their God. But when Simon the sorcerer offered his gold to Peter and John; offering it, not from a principle of faith, but as an equivalent for the Holy Spirit; not in order to tes tify his thankfulness, but rather to play the huckster with Heaven, it was rejected with the utmost indignation.+

I leave my friend to apply the preceding instances. Only let me beg of him to believe, that, if my words are grating, they are extorted by the force of truth. If I am obliged to blame, what he calls good works, it is, as a great critic blames eloquence, with the tenderness of a lover.' But my censure falls only on their faulty origin, and unbecoming aim. Let them spring from the grace of Christ, as their source; let them propose the glory of Christ as their end; then, instead of putting a slight upon them, or giving them a bill of

Acta iv. 37.

+ Ibid. viii. 20.

divorce, I would court, caress, and wed them. Whereas, if neither this end be kept in the view, nor that principle operate in the heart, I must persist in questioning the genuineness of their character; nay, in denying the very possibility of their existence. There may be a mimicry of holy actions, but it is mimicry only; as empty as the combs made by those wasps, and no better than a flame that is painted.

I have an authority for this doctrine, which I think you will not offer to controvert..

Ther. What authority?

Asp. That of our church, who declares, in her XIIIth Article; Works done before the grace of Christ, and inspiration of his Spirit, are not pleasing to God; forasmuch as they spring not out of faith in Christ. Faith in Jesus Christ purifies the heart. Till this be done, we have neither disposition nor capacity for holy obedience; nay, without faith in Christ our persons are abominable;+ our state is damnable; and how can any of our works be acceptable?

Such a one, you say, is honest in his dealings, temperate in his enjoyments, charitable to the poor. I allow it all. But, unless these seeming virtues are referred to the glory of the Supreme Jehovah; unless they flow from faith in the crucified Jesus; they may be acts of wordly policy, of selfish prudence, or phari. saical pride. They are by no means a pleasing oblation to the Lord Almighty. Nay, instead of being acts of

Faciunt et vespa favos.

To the defiled and unbelieving is nothing clean,' Tit. I. 15. The apostle joins defiled and unbelieving; to intimate, that without a true belief nothing is clean. The understanding and the conscience are poliuted. Both the man and his doings are im

pure.

Might not this observation be made, with great propriety, in our infirmary and other charitable sermons? Should not the audience be exhorted to abound in acts of benevolence, from a grateful regard to the infinitely merciful and condescending Jesus! 2 Cor. viii. 9.-Should they not, before all things, be di rected to make sure their interest in the Redeemer's merits, that their persons may find favour, and their alms acceptance? Eph. i. 6. Should they not be admonished, that without this believing application to Christ, whatever they do, whatever they give, is worthless in the eye of their Maker, and will be fruitless to their own souls! Heb. xi. 6.-lu this respect our Saviour was eminently typified by the Jewish altar, on which every sacrifice, by whomsoever brought, was to be offered; and repa

duty, and objects of approbation, they stand condemned in the Scripture, and are breaches o the commandment. They stand condemned in that Scripture, which declares, Without faith it is impossible to please God." They are breaches of that commandment, which requires, Whether ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'+

Upon the whole, if we will submit to the determination of our established church, or acquiesce in the decision of our divine Master, we must acknowledge that there is no such thing as a good work, till we are reconciled to God, and our persons accepted in his sight. Therefore, to represent our own works as the means of reconciliation and acceptance, is both chimerical and absurd. Chimerical, because it builds upon a phantom, and takes for a reality what has no existence: absurd, because it inverts the natural order of things, and would make the effect antecedent to the cause.

Ther. Before we quit this agreeable retreat, let me ask my Aspasio, what he proposes by running down all those works, which are the produce of inward religion, and essential to true holiness; whose excellency is displayed in the clearest, and whose necessity is urged in the strongest terms, throughout the whole Bible.

Asp. I am far from running down works, which are the produce of inward religion, and therefore may be justly styled, Works of faith, and labours of love." But I would caution my Theron and myself to take care, that our works be accompanied with those circumstances, which alone can render them truly good. Let them arise from faith, and bear witness to love, or

rate from which no sacrifice, however costly, could be accepted Exod. xx. 24. Levit. xvii. 3, 4.

Heb. xi. 6.

+ 1 Cor. x. 31.

1 Works of faith and labours of love,' 1 Thess. i. 3. How finely are good works characterised in this place! Though it be only en passant, transiently, or by the by. And how judiciously are the true distinguished from the counterfeit! Works which are done in faith; works which proceed from love; these, and these only, the apostle signifies, are really good. As some noble river, though pressing forward to the ocean, nourishes many a fair plant, and suckles many a sweet flower by the way; so the sacred writers, though principally intent (as here) upon some different point, yet drop incidentally such valuable truths, as cheer the believer's heart and make glad the city of our God. VOL. 1.

M

else we shall have thistles instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley.'

I would also persuade my friend, and I would habi. tuate myself, not to repose our confidence in any works whatsoever; lest they prove a bruised reed, that breaks under our weight; or a pointed spear, that pierces us to the heart. We shall never be like the church, Who comes up out of the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved,'t so long as we bolster up ourselves with a conceit of personal righteousness. This was the error, the fatal error of the pharisees. This the film, which blinded the eyes of their mind, and sealed them up, under the darkness of final unbelief.

Besides, my dear Theron, if you expect to be saved by your own duties, you will be loth to see the worst of your condition. To see the worst of your condition will be a dagger to your hopes, and as death to your soul. You will therefore be inclined to daub with untempered mortar.' Instead of acknowledging the deep depravity of your nature, and the numberless iniquities of your life, you will invent a thousand excuses to palliate your guilt; and, by this means, erect a wall of partition, between your soul and the merits of your Redeemer; which will be a greater inconvenience, a more destructive evil, than to cut off all supply of provision from an army, or even to intercept the sun-beams from visiting the earth.

Ther. Now you talk of armies, I must observe, that, though I have scarce been able to keep my ground in this argumentative action, I cannot allow you the honour of a victory, as a retreat is very different from a rout.

Asp. I would also remark, that my friend has changed the intended plan of our operations; has almost continually acted upon the offensive; while my part has been only to sustain the shock. At our next encounter, you may expect to have the order of battle reversed. I shall direct my forces to begin the charge. Put yourself therefore in readiness for a brisk attack.

Ther. You act the fair enemy, Aspasio, I must con Job xxxi. 40. ✦ Ezek. xiii. 10.

+ Cant. viii. 5.